Tag Archives: Amelia Hundley

Congratulations to our week 5 champion, Maddie Gardiner’s beam, which used a campaign boost from Oregon State to cruise to victory over Britney Ward’s vault in second and Kiana Winston’s floor in third. The race for third was close, with Winston’s floor just edging Price’s bars and Nichols’ beam.

To the vote for week 6, a week replete with 10 after 10 after 10. After 10. After 10.

So, welcome to perfect score week! This week, the nominees are all the routines that received either 10.000 or 9.975 over the weekend, and it’s your job to rank them from most-deserving to least-deserving routine by way of your vote.

Each week, I’ll put up the top routines of the previous weekend and let you guys vote on which routine wins the award for best of the week. Deciding the nominees is up to me (mwahahahaha) and is based on 3) score, 2) overall quality, and 1) which ones are easily available online—aka, which ones have been uploaded by our dear NastiaFan101. Because, you know, we need to be able to see them in order to vote for them. So if you want to vote for Elizabeth Price…get those meets to start taking place in the present day. With color televisions. And the iron horse.

The last eight months have suddenly become an era of turnover and turmoil for Florida, with the graduation of a program-defining senior class, the transfer of Peyton Ernst, the injury to Alyssa Baumann, recruit departures from Bailie Key and Laurie Hernandez, and now the ineligibility of Ericha Fassbender. This team looks a lot different than it did last year, but also a lot different than we expected it to look this year. Much can change in the course of eight months.

This turmoil has stunted expectations for Florida in 2017, but looking past the ambiguous notion of public expectations, this remains a Super Six-quality roster that stands among the five most likely winners of the national title. A title is certainly not the presumptive result it has been in recent seasons, but it’s still squarely in the picture. Because of the dramatic turnover in the roster, however, much of that potential success will rest on how well the accomplished freshman class can hit the ground Sloaning and not only fill empty lineup spots but replace multiple missing 9.9s on multiple events. Continue reading Florida 2017→

I suppose we’re about to find out. Florida’s slate of returning routines gets pretty unlovely once you go past the third (or so) person on each event, but the Gators will be relying on a batch of injury comebacks (Boyce and Dagen) and transfers (Slocum) along with this season’s four freshmen to not only match but potentially increase the team’s depth over last season on each event. Except bars. Less bars.

The most important lineup augmentation for Florida this year will come courtesy of the little engine that could, Amelia Lee Hundley. A gymnast whose first sojourn to the ranch was met by Martha going, “What is this? Why do I have to look at it?” has gradually climbed the ranks during her 786-year elite career to become the star of Florida’s freshman class.

Encouragingly, 2016 turned out to be Hundley’s best year yet, so she seems to be on the rise heading into NCAA, the stage of gymnastics to which she always appeared best suited. Olympic Trials certainly brought out Hundley’s best-ever DTY, a vault she has occasionally had to downgrade away from while dealing with various MLTs. Sorry, I meant injuries.

Those years of not being able to do the DTY may actually come in handy in college as she has plenty of experience landing the 1.5. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see that from her. Now, about getting rid of this “Meals” nickname… Continue reading 2017 Freshman Preview: Florida→